Ackee Sauce

A northern Beninese sauce in which ground dried ackee arils take the place of groundnut, cooked with tomato, onion, chilli, and smoked fish, and eaten with a pâte of maize

Origin: Northern Benin

From the journey of Ackee.

Across West Africa a great many sauces are thickened and enriched with ground groundnuts or sesame, and in the north of Benin the ackee can do the same work. Marius Ekué and his colleagues, surveying five peoples of Benin in 2010, found the arils added to sauces in place of sesame seeds or groundnuts, or dried, ground to a powder, and stirred into the sauce 'mainly to release its oil contents'. The Natemba of the Atacora call the tree foulama, 'groundnut of trees', and the name describes the use exactly. It is an old one in outline: when the ackee's seeds reached Jamaica in 1778, the Hortus Eastensis recorded that in Guinea the aril was eaten by itself or boiled in a broth or pottage. Like the fried arils, this is a way of using the ackee rather than a dish with a name of its own, and the survey records the practice rather than a recipe. What follows is built on the plan of a groundnut sauce, with the ackee in the groundnut's place: tomato, onion, and chilli cooked down in oil, smoked fish for savour, and the powdered arils simmered in until the sauce thickens and their oil rises to the surface. It is eaten, as most sauces in the region are, with a stiff pâte of maize or sorghum, the staple grains of the north, torn by hand and dipped. Sun-dried arils are the form in which the ackee most often reaches the markets of northern Benin. If you use fresh arils, take them only from pods that have opened on the tree and remove every seed and every trace of pink membrane.

Ingredients

Sauce

120 g sun-dried ackee arils, or 250 g fresh arils from fully opened pods, parboiled for 5 minutes and drained
3 tbsp groundnut oil or red palm oil
1 large onion, roughly chopped
4 ripe tomatoes, roughly chopped
2 fresh red chillies, or to taste
200 g smoked fish, skinned, boned, and broken into pieces
700 ml water
1 tsp salt, or to taste

Pâte

300 g fine white maize flour
1.25 l water

Method

Grind the dried ackee arils to a fine powder in a spice grinder or a mortar. If you are using fresh parboiled arils, pound them to a coarse paste instead.
Blend the onion, tomatoes, and chillies to a coarse purée.
Heat the oil in a heavy pan over a medium heat, add the purée, and cook for 12 to 15 minutes, stirring often, until it has darkened, thickened, and the oil begins to separate.
Add the water, the smoked fish, and the salt and bring to a simmer. Whisk in the ackee powder or paste a little at a time so that it does not form lumps.
Simmer gently, uncovered, for 25 minutes, stirring now and then, until the sauce has thickened and a sheen of oil has risen to the surface. Taste for salt and chilli.
While the sauce simmers, make the pâte. Whisk 100 g of the maize flour into 300 ml of the water until smooth. Bring the remaining water to the boil, whisk in the slurry, and cook for 5 minutes, stirring, to a thin porridge.
Add the remaining maize flour a handful at a time, beating hard with a wooden spatula against the side of the pan, until the pâte is thick, smooth, and comes away from the pan. Cover and cook over a low heat for 5 minutes more.
Shape the pâte into rounds and serve it with the sauce alongside.

Notes

A pâte of sorghum flour, or pounded yam, is just as right as one of maize. Smoked fish can be left out, or replaced with dried fish or smoked meat. The survey records the practice of cooking ackee into sauce, not a fixed recipe; the proportions here follow the plan of a groundnut sauce, with the ackee in the groundnut's place.

The Gastrographer

Name: Ackee Sauce
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 45 min
Total time: 1 h 5 min
Yield: 4
Cuisine: Northern Benin
Ingredients: 120 g sun-dried ackee arils, or 250 g fresh arils from fully opened pods, parboiled for 5 minutes and drained; 3 tbsp groundnut oil or red palm oil; 1 large onion, roughly chopped; 4 ripe tomatoes, roughly chopped; 2 fresh red chillies, or to taste; 200 g smoked fish, skinned, boned, and broken into pieces; 700 ml water; 1 tsp salt, or to taste; 300 g fine white maize flour; 1.25 l water

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Journey Point Map Key

Ingredient originTrade or transit route

Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control